Color Mutations Not uncommon, although rarer than black or melanistic forms, are reddish or chestnut varieties.
Albinistic forms appear now and again in almost every species of mammal or bird; while melanistic sports, although not so common, are not by any means rare.
Since very many species seem to throw off melanistic variations, it may perhaps be asked, How is it that more black species do not exist?
The "black" or "silver" fox is a melanistic form of the red fox.
Melanistic individuals are frequent; these should not be confused with the Kaibab squirrel which they resemble superficially.
Fully 30 per cent of the specimens examined are in some degree melanistic and approximately 20 per cent of them are completely so.
This is not strange because melanistic specimens could not be identified anyway.
The color varies in shades of gray and black, and we have a dozen records of white or albino raccoons from this county, and half that number of black or melanistic ones.
Melanistic specimens are rarer still, and I have seen but one, which was caught in Lodi Township in 1875.
Further, melanistic gray squirrels then, as now, were common in western Pennsylvania and exceedingly rare in eastern Pennsylvania.
The name was based on melanistic individuals and could conceivably be applied to three species of squirrels, the red squirrel, the fox squirrel, and the gray squirrel.
Melanistic red squirrels, Tamiasciurus hudsonicus, are everywhere rare and in any case appear as individuals and not populations.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "melanistic" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word. Other words: black; colored; dark
